A visiting instructor arrives at the Academy and uses an unorthodox method to help our cadets process the emotions of recent trauma. At the same time, a cadet faces an unexpected challenge that will alter the trajectory of her life forever.
Written by: Gaia Violo & Jane Maggs
Directed by: Andi Armaganian
There is no spoiler protection in the episode discussion threads, and spoiler tags are not necessary!
It’s disappointing worldbuilding that there is no advanced mental/medical health services everpresent already that people just use whenever. Why isn’t trauma recovery a medical procedure? Why isn’t there a holodeck for use as a therapeutic tool? The hologram ‘experiencing a childhood’ is literally a version of that already. 1k years in the future and people need theatre to teach them to manage their mental health…
But such things would require the showrunners to give a shit about the science fiction part of startrek and not abuse the IP for a modern day teen character drama set in a generic tech fiction setting. The technology and the world in this show is not treated as a meaningful character itself, the science and technology is written for the convenience of the plot and does not form a cohesive or consistent world. This lack of object storytelling is a modern writing issue that makes the stories lack grounding in shared reality. Each episode of this show might as well just be a dream one of the characters had.